Month: December 2019

Last Minute Ideas For When You Just Can’t Get There

We get it-it’s not always easy to find time for extended catch-ups with friends and family. That’s where our specially curated gift guide steps in, presenting you with a collection of last-minute ideas for gifts that speak volumes, even when you can’t be there in person.

Life’s challenges can often pull us in different directions, making it tough to share those precious moments with the ones we hold dear. Our gift guides are like a warm hug, here to offer practical solutions for the everyday pressures we all face.

These thoughtful suggestions are more than just gifts; they’re a way to bridge the gap–to let distant loved ones know that they’re always close to your heart. Dive into our guide, find that perfect something, and let your far-away friends and family feel the warmth of your care, no matter the miles between you.

In this fast-paced world, where time and distance often play the role of silent dividers, a considerate gift becomes a beautiful language of love, a reminder that we’re all connected even when life keeps us apart. So, go ahead, explore, and turn the miles into smiles with a touch of heartfelt giving. After all, the art of staying close is just a thoughtful gesture away.

Here are just a few ways to send love when you can’t send yourself.

Ideas for What To Express When Giving This Gift: The distance between us feels like an eternity! I miss you so much. It’s moments like these when I wonder why life decided we should live so far apart. But despite the physical space, I wanted to find a way to wrap you in my thoughts and be there with you, even if it’s just through this little token. You’re not just a friend or family; you’re a piece of my heart, always close, no matter the map’s measurements.

Consider this gift a tangible extension of my love. A bridge that spans the many miles that separate us but never, ever divide us.

Until we’re close again, this is my way of saying, “You’re forever in my heart.”

Holiday Giving: Remembering Parents Whose Children Are Hospitalized

“When your child is admitted to the hospital, get comfortable.” This from Jenine Repice, whose family faced a serious pediatric medical crisis.

When a young child is admitted for an inpatient hospital stay, it is important to note that parents who intend to stay in the room with the child are typically given very little. This is understandable – the hospital staff are charged with patient care. In delivering these primary services, other family needs are necessarily secondary.

This reality does, however, offer a terrific opportunity for family and friends to rally around the parents by providing necessary comfort items in the form of a community care package. When nothing is familiar and everything feels uncertain, seemingly little gestures of support can bridge the chasm more than we know.

What To Express in Your Gift: I am thinking of you at every moment. I just really do want you to know that.

Holiday Giving: For Families in the NICU

Our holiday gift guides are created to suggest the most helpful things to give this holiday season. This gift guide considers the best gifts for families who will be spending the Holidays in the NICU. Each of these items has been suggested by a NICU nurse or by a NICU mom. Each is designed to offer concrete and meaningful support for families under stress. 

For families with a baby in the NICU, the holidays offer numerous challenges especially during COVID. While their eyes (and their energies) remain trained on a NICU incubator, the world continues to spin. If a family in question has older child/ren, the balancing act between a baby and older sibling(s) must be artfully negotiated. For these reasons, the gift of acknowledging an impossible/difficult situation is, in and of itself, an act of love. Still, practical items help a great deal too.

What To Express When Giving This Gift: I know that you all are totally taken up with the the baby/babies right now. I just wanted to say that no one has forgotten about you – we really want to help. I think about all the things I do every day and I know you have a hard time leaving the hospital. I would love to help you coordinate stuff for as long as you need – this gift is only a gesture of things to come. And a way to say that you are truly an incredible person and parent.  Can we talk? What works best for you?

Holiday Giving: Remembrances for Bereaved Spouses & Partners

Our holiday gift guides are created to suggest the most helpful things to give this holiday season. This guide suggests ideas to support the bereaved. (Bear in mind that grief knows no timeframe – a loss may have occurred calendar years ago, but the bereaved would still welcome acknowledgment).

All death is magnified during the Holidays when that happiness-on-overdrive thrumming quality reverberates. While our ability to offer tangible help is limited, the power of our reach, love, and friendship does matter. Here are a few ways to reach out and say that you too join them in remembrance of loss.

What To Express In Giving This Gift: I miss [name of deceased] too. You are not alone. I can’t imagine what you are feeling right now, but I wanted to let you know that I want to remember [name of deceased] and I am here to talk about anything should you find that useful. I can also do practical things – watch kids, carpool, go for a hike – anything. I’ll check in with you to see how I can be most useful. 

Holiday Giving: Things Your Aging Loved Ones Really Need

Our holiday gift guides are created to suggest the most helpful things to give this  holiday season. This gift guide considers the best gifts for our aging loved ones. Each of these items is suggested by medical personnel who work with geriatric populations. Each of these items can serve to help in concrete ways – while also opening a larger discussion between family and friends about how to best support a loved one in the longer term. Win/win. 

As those we love age, they face many challenges – some of which they are reticent to raise with younger generations. These elders recognize that their children and grandchildren are taken up with their own young children and families. As you consider aging loved ones in your life, take into account the things they need – but may not be getting. Remember that opening initially difficult conversations has net benefit in the long term. It is an act of love.

Ideas for What To Express When Giving This Gift:

I was thinking about how much you bring to our lives. I wanted to be sure that you had everything you needed. I am giving you this practical gift because I’d love to continue to learn about challenges you face – and help to coordinate my cousins and siblings to assist as well. You have done so much for us. Please do us the honor of permitting us to return the favor. Maybe we can sit down in January to talk it over? 

5 Tips for Supporting Families With Loved Ones in the Hospital Over the Holidays

The holidays are a time when lots of families reconnect and celebrate seasonal traditions. For families with a loved one in the hospital, however, it can be an especially difficult time, often compounded by extra responsibility, exhaustion, and isolation. If you know a family with someone in the hospital over the holidays, here are five meaningful ways you can help them during the holiday season and beyond.

Offer to do Grocery Shopping

Going to the store and keeping the fridge full of food can often sound like a chore that’s too far out of reach for someone with family in the hospital. Offer to do grocery shopping for the family. Be sure to ask which stores and brand they prefer.

Offer to do Holiday Gift Shopping

Families with someone in the hospital might not have time to do holiday shopping. Offer to take their list to the store and pick up their presents. Wrapping presents is also a useful thing to offer.

Give Parents a Date Night

For parents with a sick child in the hospital, offer to sit with their child (or watch their other children), so they can have some alone time. Even if they just go to the hospital cafeteria or get a coffee together, they need time together to decompress and reconnect.

Take the Kids Somewhere Fun

When a family member is in the hospital, an entire family often revolves around that one person, and often the needs of kids at home aren’t as attended as they had been. Offer to take the kids out to the movies, or the park, or somewhere fun. Even a trip to the library can brighten the day of kids who haven’t been able to get out for a while. If the family member is in the hospital for a long time, offer to take the kids out weekly.

Vehicle Cleaning and Service

Tending to the vehicle of a family with someone in the hospital is an often overlooked, but much appreciated service you can offer. Winter is no time to find out you need new tires, or an oil change. Offer to take their car in for its regular service. Even offering to clean it, fill it with gas, and put on new windshield wipers can mean a lot to families with other things on their minds.

 

PRO TIPS:

Followup and Check In

Some people decline help the first time someone offers it for many reasons; maybe they’re newly in their situation, maybe they think they can do it on their own, maybe they’re just overwhelmed. But offer to help more than one time. After a few days, they may have a better idea of what you can help with. Or they may not need help at first. Casually check in when you feel it’s appropriate and ask what you can do. Offer to set up a Give InKind page for them, and make them an organizer so they can add needs as they come up.

Ask Them How They Are Doing and What They Need

Maybe they have a large support network already, and what they really need is a friend to just hang out with and decompress. Maybe they need help with laundry. Whatever it is, ask and listen.

Offer Specific Things You Know You Can Do

Some people don’t yet know what they need, until you offer it. Others might feel like they’re imposing on you by suggesting something, so don’t be afraid to suggest specifics.

 

This is How To Help Friends & Family of the Bereaved During the Holidays

For the bereaved, impending holidays are often fraught. The beauty of the season (strung lights and candles) may strike a discordant note when one is grieving. The experience of, and emphasis on family as part of a holiday tradition and seasonal lore rests somewhere between poignant and crushing. My son was stillborn in December and I associate his death quite literally with chestnuts roasting on an open fire in carts in New York City, and horse-drawn livery cabs.

In my experience of working in bereavement since then, loving and well-intended people who want to reach out sometimes don’t. I am here to tell you that it is right and good to follow through on your impulse to reach out. 

I am also here to remind you that there is no timeline for grief. All experiences will be absolutely unique. There is no half-life of grief – and so if you catch yourself wondering whether to acknowledge loss consider these most commonly asked questions:

Q: I want to say something to my friend/brother/aunt – I know [they] were really devastated by [their] loss. But they seem like they are doing so well now. I don’t want to cause pain.

A: This is a lovely question to have. It reflects such consideration – you are remembering and acknowledging the pain of loss. This is such an act of love. The answer to this question is not straightforward. It depends a lot on the individual, and on your relationship to the individual. You know the person best and each situation is different. How you reach out should be considered along these parameters. In general though, it is always okay to say something to someone you know has suffered loss. In others words, you are not going to “remind” them of loss. They have not forgotten. You can send a card, or a memorial gift – to indicate that their loved one is gone but not forgotten.

Q: I’ll be honest. I really don’t know what to say. What should I say?

A: This is a tough one. While it is true that you won’t remind a bereaved person of their loss, it is also true that they may or may not want to talk about it. It is truest of all though, that it is still nice to acknowledge loss and to open a door through which they may or may not walk. There were people who tried to talk to me – I was not always able to have a long talk with them. It had more to do with where I was in my head than it did with them. But I truly appreciated their asking. If you are at a family dinner, take the bereaved one aside privately and ask whether it would be okay to drink a toast to the memory of the person who died. Send them a flowering plant as a reminder of the deep roots of life, love, and family (including friendships.)

Q: What can I do? I feel kind of powerless.

A: Above all else, checking in is doing something. Do not underestimate this. A quick call or an email is priceless. Invite them out for coffee, tea, or a drink. If they are far away, have a coffee/tea Skype date. If the bereaved has small children, don’t forget them as the holidays approach. Last minute errands are harder for solo parents. Anticipate this and send them extra stuff everyone forgets (triple A batteries, tiny screwdrivers, scotch tape.)

Keep showing up. Just keep showing up. It means more than you know.

Holiday Giving: Remembrances for Bereaved Parents Coping With Baby Loss

For women and men who have experienced baby loss (miscarriage, neonatal death), the holidays may be an intensely melancholy experience. Many friends wonder, should I reach out? The answer is yes – gently. The kindness and courage implicit in this act is deeply healing. And powerful. Here are some things you can do to help. 

What To Express When Giving This Gift:

I understand that your loss impacted you deeply. In deciding what to offer you, I confess that I was not totally sure where to start. There is a part of me that worries that in remembering your baby, I am causing you pain. But much of what I have read suggests that this is unlikely – you have not forgotten. I know. I guess I just want to let you know that I have not either. I may not always say or do exactly the right thing – but I am trying. I mourn with you the life you wanted. And I just want to let you know I think you are just great. I am here if I can help, or if you want to talk. Sending lots of love.